Recent Activity

Seymour's self-minor conjecture ★★★

Author(s): Seymour

Conjecture   Every infinite graph is a proper minor of itself.

Keywords: infinite graph; minor

Perfect 2-error-correcting codes over arbitrary finite alphabets. ★★

Author(s):

Conjecture   Does there exist a nontrivial perfect 2-error-correcting code over any finite alphabet, other than the ternary Golay code?

Keywords: 2-error-correcting; code; existence; perfect; perfect code

Are there an infinite number of lucky primes?

Author(s): Lazarus: Gardiner: Metropolis; Ulam

Conjecture   If every second positive integer except 2 is remaining, then every third remaining integer except 3, then every fourth remaining integer etc. , an infinite number of the remaining integers are prime.

Keywords: lucky; prime; seive

Something like Picard for 1-forms ★★

Author(s): Elsner

Conjecture   Let $ D $ be the open unit disk in the complex plane and let $ U_1,\dots,U_n $ be open sets such that $ \bigcup_{j=1}^nU_j=D\setminus\{0\} $. Suppose there are injective holomorphic functions $ f_j : U_j \to \mathbb{C}, $ $ j=1,\ldots,n, $ such that for the differentials we have $ {\rm d}f_j={\rm d}f_k $ on any intersection $ U_j\cap U_k $. Then those differentials glue together to a meromorphic 1-form on $ D $.

Keywords: Essential singularity; Holomorphic functions; Picard's theorem; Residue of 1-form; Riemann surfaces

The robustness of the tensor product ★★★

Author(s): Ben-Sasson; Sudan

Problem   Given two codes $ R,C $, their Tensor Product $ R \otimes C $ is the code that consists of the matrices whose rows are codewords of $ R $ and whose columns are codewords of $ C $. The product $ R \otimes C $ is said to be robust if whenever a matrix $ M $ is far from $ R \otimes C $, the rows (columns) of $ M $ are far from $ R $ ($ C $, respectively).

The problem is to give a characterization of the pairs $ R,C $ whose tensor product is robust.

Keywords: codes; coding; locally testable; robustness

Schanuel's Conjecture ★★★★

Author(s): Schanuel

Conjecture   Given any $ n $ complex numbers $ z_1,...,z_n $ which are linearly independent over the rational numbers $ \mathbb{Q} $, then the extension field $ \mathbb{Q}(z_1,...,z_n,\exp(z_1),...,\exp(z_n)) $ has transcendence degree of at least $ n $ over $ \mathbb{Q} $.

Keywords: algebraic independence

Beneš Conjecture ★★★

Author(s): Beneš

Let $ E $ be a non-empty finite set. Given a partition $ \bf h $ of $ E $, the stabilizer of $ \bf h $, denoted $ S(\bf h) $, is the group formed by all permutations of $ E $ preserving each block of $ \mathbf h $.

Problem  ($ \star $)   Find a sufficient condition for a sequence of partitions $ {\bf h}_1, \dots, {\bf h}_\ell $ of $ E $ to be complete, i.e. such that the product of their stabilizers $ S({\bf h}_1) S({\bf h}_2) \dots S({\bf h}_\ell) $ is equal to the whole symmetric group $ \frak S(E) $ on $ E $. In particular, what about completeness of the sequence $ \bf h,\delta(\bf h),\dots,\delta^{\ell-1}(\bf h) $, given a partition $ \bf h $ of $ E $ and a permutation $ \delta $ of $ E $?
Conjecture  (Beneš)   Let $ \bf u $ be a uniform partition of $ E $ and $ \varphi $ be a permutation of $ E $ such that $ \bf u\wedge\varphi(\bf u)=\bf 0 $. Suppose that the set $ \big(\varphi S({\bf u})\big)^{n} $ is transitive, for some integer $ n\ge2 $. Then $$ \frak S(E) = \big(\varphi S({\bf u})\big)^{2n-1}. $$

Keywords:

Frankl's union-closed sets conjecture ★★

Author(s): Frankl

Conjecture   Let $ F $ be a finite family of finite sets, not all empty, that is closed under taking unions. Then there exists $ x $ such that $ x $ is an element of at least half the members of $ F $.

Keywords:

Double-critical graph conjecture ★★

Author(s): Erdos; Lovasz

A connected simple graph $ G $ is called double-critical, if removing any pair of adjacent vertexes lowers the chromatic number by two.

Conjecture   $ K_n $ is the only $ n $-chromatic double-critical graph

Keywords: coloring; complete graph

Shuffle-Exchange Conjecture ★★★

Author(s): Beneš; Folklore; Stone

Given integers $ k,n\ge2 $, let $ d(k,n) $ be the smallest integer $ d\ge2 $ such that the symmetric group $ \frak S $ on the set of all words of length $ n $ over a $ k $-letter alphabet can be generated as $ \frak S = (\sigma \frak G)^d:=\sigma\frak G \sigma\frak G \dots \sigma\frak G $ ($ d $ times), where $ \sigma\in \frak S $ is the shuffle permutation defined by $ \sigma(x_1 x_2 \dots x_{n}) = x_2 \dots x_{n} x_1 $, and $ \frak G $ is the exchange group consisting of all permutations in $ \frak S $ preserving the first $ n-1 $ letters in the words.

Problem  (SE)   Evaluate $ d(k,n) $.
Conjecture  (SE)   $ d(k,n)=2n-1 $, for all $ k,n\ge2 $.

Keywords:

Strong colorability ★★★

Author(s): Aharoni; Alon; Haxell

Let $ r $ be a positive integer. We say that a graph $ G $ is strongly $ r $-colorable if for every partition of the vertices to sets of size at most $ r $ there is a proper $ r $-coloring of $ G $ in which the vertices in each set of the partition have distinct colors.

Conjecture   If $ \Delta $ is the maximal degree of a graph $ G $, then $ G $ is strongly $ 2 \Delta $-colorable.

Keywords: strong coloring

Is there an algorithm to determine if a triangulated 4-manifold is combinatorially equivalent to the 4-sphere? ★★★

Author(s): Novikov

Problem   Is there an algorithm which takes as input a triangulated 4-manifold, and determines whether or not this manifold is combinatorially equivalent to the 4-sphere?

Keywords: 4-sphere; algorithm

What is the homotopy type of the group of diffeomorphisms of the 4-sphere? ★★★★

Author(s): Smale

Problem   $ Diff(S^4) $ has the homotopy-type of a product space $ Diff(S^4) \simeq \mathbb O_5 \times Diff(D^4) $ where $ Diff(D^4) $ is the group of diffeomorphisms of the 4-ball which restrict to the identity on the boundary. Determine some (any?) homotopy or homology groups of $ Diff(D^4) $.

Keywords: 4-sphere; diffeomorphisms

Which compact boundaryless 3-manifolds embed smoothly in the 4-sphere? ★★★

Author(s): Kirby

Problem   Determine a computable set of invariants that allow one to determine, given a compact boundaryless 3-manifold, whether or not it embeds smoothly in the 4-sphere. This should include a constructive procedure to find an embedding if the manifold is embeddable.

Keywords: 3-manifold; 4-sphere; embedding

Fundamental group torsion for subsets of Euclidean 3-space ★★

Author(s): Ancient/folklore

Problem   Does there exist a subset of $ \mathbb R^3 $ such that its fundamental group has an element of finite order?

Keywords: subsets of euclidean space; torsion

Which homology 3-spheres bound homology 4-balls? ★★★★

Author(s): Ancient/folklore

Problem   Is there a complete and computable set of invariants that can determine which (rational) homology $ 3 $-spheres bound (rational) homology $ 4 $-balls?

Keywords: cobordism; homology ball; homology sphere

Realisation problem for the space of knots in the 3-sphere ★★

Author(s): Budney

Problem   Given a link $ L $ in $ S^3 $, let the symmetry group of $ L $ be denoted $ Sym(L) = \pi_0 Diff(S^3,L) $ ie: isotopy classes of diffeomorphisms of $ S^3 $ which preserve $ L $, where the isotopies are also required to preserve $ L $.

Now let $ L $ be a hyperbolic link. Assume $ L $ has the further `Brunnian' property that there exists a component $ L_0 $ of $ L $ such that $ L \setminus L_0 $ is the unlink. Let $ A_L $ be the subgroup of $ Sym(L) $ consisting of diffeomorphisms of $ S^3 $ which preserve $ L_0 $ together with its orientation, and which preserve the orientation of $ S^3 $.

There is a representation $ A_L \to \pi_0 Diff(L \setminus L_0) $ given by restricting the diffeomorphism to the $ L \setminus L_0 $. It's known that $ A_L $ is always a cyclic group. And $ \pi_0 Diff(L \setminus L_0) $ is a signed symmetric group -- the wreath product of a symmetric group with $ \mathbb Z_2 $.

Problem: What representations can be obtained?

Keywords: knot space; symmetry

Slice-ribbon problem ★★★★

Author(s): Fox

Conjecture   Given a knot in $ S^3 $ which is slice, is it a ribbon knot?

Keywords: cobordism; knot; ribbon; slice

Smooth 4-dimensional Schoenflies problem ★★★★

Author(s): Alexander

Problem   Let $ M $ be a $ 3 $-dimensional smooth submanifold of $ S^4 $, $ M $ diffeomorphic to $ S^3 $. By the Jordan-Brouwer separation theorem, $ M $ separates $ S^4 $ into the union of two compact connected $ 4 $-manifolds which share $ M $ as a common boundary. The Schoenflies problem asks, are these $ 4 $-manifolds diffeomorphic to $ D^4 $? ie: is $ M $ unknotted?

Keywords: 4-dimensional; Schoenflies; sphere

Are different notions of the crossing number the same? ★★★

Author(s): Pach; Tóth

Problem   Does the following equality hold for every graph $ G $? \[ \text{pair-cr}(G) = \text{cr}(G) \]

The crossing number $ \text{cr}(G) $ of a graph $ G $ is the minimum number of edge crossings in any drawing of $ G $ in the plane. In the pairwise crossing number $ \text{pair-cr}(G) $, we minimize the number of pairs of edges that cross.

Keywords: crossing number; pair-crossing number